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Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Publication Year within 25 Years

1871. Financial Conglomerates: The Future of Finance?

Author:
Robert Litan and Richard Herring
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In 1999, after nearly twenty years of debate, the U.S. Congress finally passed legislation permitting bank affiliations with all sorts of other financial enterprises, and vice versa. In this step, the United States joined many other countries — especially in Europe and, more recently, Japan — in allowing the operation of financial conglomerates. But are financial conglomerates the wave of the future in finance? And if so, how are they to be regulated? These were the two central questions addressed in the fifth annual conference of the Brookings-Wharton Papers on Financial Services, an annual volume published by the Brookings Institution Press. The conference, held in October 2002 in Washington, D.C., convened financial services experts from around the world. The papers presented at the conference suggest, generally, that while the future may see more financial conglomerate activity than it has in the past, there still will be a role for specialist, or "monoline" financial companies. As for regulation, there is no settled model: some nations will pursue consolidated supervision, with authority over entire conglomerates vested in a single authority (often the central bank), while others will still regulate the pieces of diversified financial enterprises along structural lines.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Washington

1872. Decoding Cancun: Hard Decisions for a Development Round

Author:
George Perkovich, Sandra Polaski, John Audley, and Scott Vaughan
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Following the riotous 1999 meeting in Seattle, and a near failure in Doha in 2001, the World Trade Organization dedicated the current round of trade liberalization talks to “development.” Negotiators will meet in Cancun, Mexico, in September amid competing claims regarding what steps are necessary to make trade serve development goals. The catch phrases of international trade—“comparative advantage,” “the development round,” “trade not aid,” and “level playing field”—hide tough choices for both developing and developed country governments. Getting trade rules right is not sufficient for development, but getting them wrong can cripple it. The authors outline the policies that governments and international institutions will need to avoid a debacle at Cancun and to assist developing countries in achieving long-lasting growth.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Mexico

1873. Strengthening Linkages Between U.S. Trade Policy and Environmental Capacity Building

Author:
John Audley and Vanessa Ulmer
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
ATTENTION TO TRADE-RELATED TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE and capacity building (TCB) has surged as people from all walks of life explore how the global trade regime can be structured to better promote equitable, sustainable human development. TCB strengthens developing countries' human, physical, and institutional capacities to participate in trade negotiations, implement trade commitments, and benefit from integration into the global trading system. Given the Bush administration's goal to “ignite a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade,” capacity building has become an important component of U.S. bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade negotiations.
Topic:
Environment and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

1874. Liberalizing Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries

Author:
David Orden, Rashid S. Kaukab, and Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
A diverse group of development and trade liberalization advocates agree that reduction of agricultural protection and subsidization in the world's wealthy countries is necessary to strengthen both international growth opportunities and the global trade regime. According to the consensus reached among participants attending a conference cosponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Cordell Hull Institute, WTO Doha Round negotiations on agriculture should compel policy changes in industrialized countries to limit trade-distorting domestic subsidies for agricultural products, lower tariffs, increase market access, and eliminate export subsidies. In response to temporary hardships caused by an overall reduction in agriculture support, governments should have the flexibility to adopt temporary or limited domestic, and perhaps international, compensatory policies. Significant differences in perspective and policy prescriptions were expressed by conference participants about the appropriate speed and scope of agricultural liberalization in developing countries, especially if progress is not made toward reduced support for agriculture in developed countries.
Topic:
Development, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

1875. Trade Preferences and Environmental Goods

Author:
Scott Vaughan
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
For the World Trade Organization (WTO), the most important development in a decade related to trade-environment linkages is the agreement to liberalize commerce in environmental goods and services. If properly executed, the agreement will increase the availability of “green” goods in global markets and break the North-South deadlock that has paralyzed discussions on the trade regime governing such goods.
Topic:
Environment, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

1876. Trade and Labor Standards: A Strategy for Developing Countries

Author:
Sandra Polaski
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
A debate has raged between developed and developing country governments for several years over whether or not to establish a global agreement on minimum labor standards that would be enforced at the international level through the World Trade Organization (WTO) or some other mechanism. That debate has become stale and ritualized. In the meantime the world has changed. For developing countries, the environment in which global labor standards must be considered was transformed in 2002.
Topic:
Development, Industrial Policy, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China

1877. The New Approach to Foreign Aid: Is the Enthusiasm Warranted?

Author:
Ian Vásquez
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The failure of past foreign aid programs has given rise to a new consensus on how to make foreign aid effective. According to the new approach, aid that goes into poor countries that have good policies and institutions is highly effective at promoting growth and reducing poverty. Disbursing aid to countries that have good policies contrasts with the traditional practice of providing aid to countries irrespective of the quality of their policies or providing aid to promote policy reforms. President George Bush's proposed foreign aid initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account, is based on the selective approach to foreign assistance, as are, in large part, the World Bank's calls to double foreign aid flows worldwide.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Third World

1878. Reauthorize or Retire the Overseas Private Investment Corporation?

Author:
Ian Vásquez and John Welborn
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation is a government agency that provides loans and investment insurance to U.S. companies doing business around the world. Its four-year, renewable charter will expire in September 2003. Proponents of OPIC claim that the agency helps the U.S. economy and promotes economic development abroad.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

1879. The IMF's Dubious Proposal for a Universal Bankruptcy Law for Sovereign Debtors

Author:
Anna J. Schwartz
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The International Monetary Fund has proposed a universal bankruptcy tribunal to deal with sovereign debt restructuring. But does the international financial system really need such a mechanism? There has been little demand by sovereign borrowers or their creditors for a universal bankruptcy law, and few countries have had to enter into debt restructuring procedures. The absence of such a law does not appear to have created chaotic conditions even in those cases.
Topic:
Economics, International Organization, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance

1880. Is America Exporting Misguided Telecommunications Policy?

Author:
Motohiro Tsuchiya and Adam Thierer
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Global telecommunications markets have traditionally been closed to foreign trade and investment. Recent World Trade Organization negotiations resulted in a Basic Telecommunications agreement that sought to construct a multilateral framework to reverse that trend and begin opening telecom markets worldwide. Regrettably, this new WTO framework is quite ambiguous and open to pro-regulatory interpretations by member states.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Science and Technology, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, America, and South Asia